Atlanta, February 2 (RHC)-- Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has announced that the highly contested $90 million police training facility known as “Cop City” is moving forward, despite growing opposition and the police killing of a forest defender last month. 

Activists have been camping out in Weelaunee Forest for months to prevent its destruction.  Demonstrators at Atlanta’s City Hall yesterday chanted> “Cop City will never be built!” while members of the press were locked out of Mayor Dickens’s news conference. 

Atlanta community organizer Micah Herskind responding to the city’s plans, told reporters:  “How dare they stand in front of people and say, 'Oh, this plan, where we're tearing down trees, is actually good for people, and it’s good for the economy, and it’s — you know, it’s actually going to protect people’?  It’s obviously false, and I hope that it’s reported as such, because it’s such classic, blatant spin, that they’re taking us for fools if they think anyone would believe that tearing down trees and putting cement over it is protecting the environment.  That’s outrageous.”